Monday, February 3, 2020

Wonderful 101 Kickstarter Launches To Bring Wii U Gem to Switch, Stretch Goals For Other Platforms

PlatinumGames is giving The Wonderful 101 another shot, using Kickstarter to crowdfund a Switch remaster, at minimum, of the 2013 Wii U cult classic.

Updated at 3:52 p.m. ET

No more teases. PlatinumGames is giving The Wonderful 101 another shot.

The studio turned to its fans for help though, launching a Kickstarter campaign on Monday to crowdfund a remaster of the 2013 cult classic for the Nintendo Switch at minimum, with stretch goals to bring it to Steam and the PlayStation 4.

The Wonderful 101: Remastered is Platinum’s first attempt at self-publishing one of its games, and the first of four projects to be revealed on the “Platinum 4” website that the developer opened early Monday morning.

Within minutes of going live, the Kickstarter campaign reached its $50,010-minimum goal, which means the Switch version is a reality. The estimated delivery date for backers to start receiving their copies is April 2020.

The Steam version requires $250,000 in funding, which the campaign is closing in on at the time of this writing, and the PS4 version has a stretch goal of $500,000.

GameXplain was the first to report Platinum’s plans for the port, verifying through two anonymous sources that the game would be coming to the Switch, and the PS4, at least, and the existence of the company’s Kickstarter account.

Industry insider Liam Robertson corroborated the report on Twitter, adding that the Kickstarter was a backup plan after Platinum pitched the port around to different publishers, Nintendo included.

The launch of the Kickstarter follows up the photo Platinum tweeted a few days before, which many immediately read as a tease related to The Wonderful 101. Front and center is Hideki Kamiya, the senior vice president of the company and the game’s director, with a Switch console on his left and the monitor behind him having a date and time set to Oct. 1 (10/1) at 1:01.

Originally released for the Wii U in Aug. 2013 (Sept. 2013 in North America), The Wonderful 101 was, and in many ways still is, one of the more unique action games out there. Its foundation is built on having strength in numbers, having players control an army of superheroes and citizens they rescue along the way to combine (literally) and fight an invading alien force. Add in an over-the-top charm and sense of humor, and some very large scale boss battles, and the result was a gem of an experience for those who played it.

“For those who played it” is the key phrase though. The Wii U was a struggling platform, and The Wonderful 101 was a game with niche appeal, so it didn’t sell well.

Still, a majority of the standouts in the Wii U’s library have received second chances on its successor, the Switch, including Bayonetta 2 (also from Platinum) and Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE more recently. Those games didn’t do great sales-wise the first time around either, so it stood to reason from fans that Wonder-Red and company could get one, too.

They very well can now, but a Kickstarter probably isn’t the way most imagined it happening, and carries no guarantee that the campaign will succeed.

Platinum recently received a capital investment from Chinese holding company Tencent, a step the developer says it took to work toward eventually self-publishing its own games.

The studio also has Bayonetta 3 (Switch) and Babylon’s Fall (PS4, PC) in the pipeline, while their last project, Astral Chain (Switch) was just announced to have sold over a million copies.



source https://entergamingxp.com/2020/02/wonderful-101-kickstarter-launches-to-bring-wii-u-gem-to-switch-stretch-goals-for-other-platforms/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=wonderful-101-kickstarter-launches-to-bring-wii-u-gem-to-switch-stretch-goals-for-other-platforms
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